Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #245: USA v El Salvador recap (WCQ9)

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

We (Greg and Belz) go long on the game in Columbus, and what we think we learned.Minneapolis City: https://mplscitysc.comKick It Forward: https://www.kifsoccer.com/mini-pitchessupport Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedsign up for our weekly newsletter: https://scuffedweekly.substack.com/ join the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU buy our merch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/drop us a question at this link and we’ll try to answer it: https://forms.gle/rfzSEZJwsvnWSCxW7 Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. The U.S. beat El Salvador 1 to 0 and Costa Rica beat Panama 1-0 as well later at night. So the headline here is positive. No doubt about it. Those were the two most desirable outcomes of Thursday night's action. And they give us a four-point cushion on the couch that is automatic qualification for the World Cup. Greg, how you doing? Couldn't be better, Bells. That's a six-point evening. And I'm looking forward now to the upcoming freezing evenings that we're going to be looking forward to. Yeah, somewhat freezing, you know, freezing with a small F in Hamilton, Ontario, and then capital F freezing in St. Paul. But let's talk about the game that was last night. Let's start with the positives.

I'll start with the positives. about 3.00 in expected goals for the U.S. 0.17 for El Salvador and no shots on target. I thought, way, it looked really good. I thought McKenny, especially in the first half, looked really, really good. I thought Walker Zimmerman looked good. And I'm sure you thought Jesus Ferreira looked good, right?

Why are you framing it like that? You're not going to take a stance this early? You're going to wait. I just don't want to do all the talking myself. I'm going to have to cheese out your actual conclusion on Jesus Ferreira. No, no, I very much enjoy it. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

I mean, it's no secret that I enjoy the aesthetic of the way Jesus Ferre plays. And I thought that he actually did have a couple of like, I don't know if I want to call him uncharacteristic, like moments of not being polished, but he did have some sloppy moments. But I also thought there were just a lot of the things that I enjoy watching my about him on display in that game. And I thought he was really effective. And, you know, I'm a big, it's about creating chances, kind of a evaluator of performance. And Jesus Ferreira was involved in a lot of things that lead to goals.

So I was, I was happy with what he was doing. I'm interested to see how Burrhalter sort of rates him based on how he, Burrhalter chooses to line up in the next two matches. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the post-game press conference, Barraltar said exactly the same thing, as you just said. It's, you know, we'd like him to finish those chances, or particularly the one on the flicked header from Waya. But he was creating chances. He was getting into opportunities to score. He said he'd be worried if he wasn't. And he was, so he was happy with his performance.

So I'll just say again, too, like, as I've said, plenty of times for regular listeners here, like for me saying that a guy, when you say he needs to finish. those or we want him to finish more of the chances. That is essentially just meaningless to me. It's like jibberish. It's like soccer jibberish. It's like we need this baseball player to get more base hits. He only got one base hit yesterday. We'd like him to get three base hits.

Like you just look at the long run chance conversion. And more importantly, basically chance creation. So for Jesus Ferreira, for a performance where you're trying to predict how he's going to do next time, that is a really good night. He missed. We'll get in the chronology, I'm sure, and talk about the misses. but there is no magic formula for guys who just like always finish their chances. That simply doesn't exist.

You just want guys who create chances in volume. You want your team creating chances in volume. How coolly rational of you. I, you know, I guess I agree, but I do, you know, I think we can mourn the fact that he missed that chance. Like so maybe he gets another chance just like that where he either has to like throw his head at it or some other part of his body or his left foot. And he chooses to do none of those and tries to do it with the outside of his boot, converting a, you know, 0.7 XG chance into something much less than a 0.7 XG chance.

I don't know. I mean, I know that what you're saying is correct. I just can't, my heart can't quite get with it. It's tough, right? It's tough. That's the human side, especially, I mean, we got the result. We got the points. If we don't, as anyone who watched the World Cup lost to Belgium knows, like you spend,

and a cycle or longer always saying what would have what could have been if if wanda would just converted that chance that only gets converted one out of three times in real life you know like oh it's impossible not to to run that back through your head over and over and over again but when we actually get to win uh on the emotional level it just doesn't sting quite as much no it doesn't sting it doesn't sting at all and that's the that's the bottom line is it was a six point window like you said. I mean, a six point, sorry, a six point night. And that's a big deal. That Costa Rica went over Panama, which was, I don't know, a disjointed affair, a weird game. That was a, that was a huge, huge result, obviously. And I'll throw this in there just in case

we are adding any listeners between podcasts. We're obviously very interested in the Panama results this window because Panama is our closest competition for the automatic qualification line. So Panama losing was very important to get that cushion and sort of lengthen that little bit. They have a home match coming up on Sunday while we are away to Canada. So that four point cushion could shrink this weekend. If it doesn't, we are basically, basically home and free. Not to jinx anything, bells, but I mean, We're basically home and free anyway.

Yeah, I think we're in good, we're in a good spot. And I, and anybody who's saying, well, uh, Costa Rica now is a threat to, to catch up to us. I'm going to say, yeah, probably not. Probably not. Costa Rica is not very good. Panama, Panama was hard done by in that game to not get a result. And, um, it's hard to see Costa Rica getting a bunch of results to close out the season. And I think, you know, we may, we may struggle there.

like we always do in San Juan. I'm sorry, it's not San Juan. It's, we may struggle there like we always do in San Jose, but, but I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to be a threat. Panama is the threat. They're a better team than Costa Rica. Should we do the lineups? Well, no, I was going to say, let's just, while we're there, do a full sort of of con-calf recap. Canada won against Honduras at Honduras.

So they maintain their sort of strangle hold on first place. They're ahead of us by a point. Mexico won against Jamaica. Ten man Jamaica. Jamaica took a red card and it was nervous for Mexico for a bit for a bit there. So Mexico sort of hold their spot in the line up as well. And it very much looks like Mexico, Canada and the United States will be the three automatic qualifiers. Again, not not saying those chickens have officially hatched.

But there's definitely like cracking into eggs. Yeah. Although, you know, watching the game last night, and even though we did rack up a lot of expected goals, it doesn't, you know, that performance against El Salvador doesn't make it look like that game against Panama in the last window is going to be so easy. Because I do think Panama is a tougher opponent than El Salvador. So, yeah, the chickens haven't hatched. I don't know. We can talk in circles about this as much as we want. It's like we just got to keep, we just got to keep winning.

And the window of opportunity for the teams below us has to keep getting smaller until it's just not possible anymore. All right. Let's talk about the gentleman who expanded the cushion for us last night. Yep. It was Matt Turner and goal, Sergenio Dest, Walker Zimmerman, Chris Richards and Anthony Robinson across the back line, Tyler Adams, West McKenney and Eunice Musa in the midfield, and then Wea on the right wing, Pulisic on the left wing, and Jesus Ferreira at Stryker.

The only surprise is, I mean, the only surprise was Ferreira starting over Pepey, and I did not have a problem with it personally. I know, obviously, you did not. I don't. And I also want to make sure that I'm not trying to make it sound like I think Jesus Ferreira is a much, much better option than Ricardo Pepe. I am definitely on record saying throw all seven of the forwards sort of in contention. in a hat and pick a name out. My personal preference is Frera just because I really enjoy watching him play soccer. Yeah, he's a he's a lock picker.

He's a lock picker. El Salvador started with Mario Gonzalez and goal. Brian Tamacas, Eduardo Acosta, Roberto Dominguez, and Alexander Larine across the backline, Darwin Serene, Brian Landa Verde and youngster Enrique Hernandez, the Dutch. El Salvador in the midfield, and then Alex Rodon, Christian Il, and Hiro Anriquez across the front line. I think, I guess there are no big surprises there. Enrique Hernandez is kind of a player who's come on strong for El Salvador. He wasn't, I don't think he was terribly involved in the first window, but otherwise, no big surprises there.

Now, any thoughts on the lineup, Greg? On the U.S. Line? Yeah. I didn't know if Richards was going to start, and I don't know what that signals. I don't know if that's just sort of like preemptively resting Miles to make sure he's full speed against Canada because there are all those sort of other considerations in play in these windows. So, and I also don't know if that means maybe, you know, Walker Zimmer might not have played if we weren't going to rotate Miles. I don't know who Miles would come in for if Miles is the.

presumptive actual starter in a full strength theme. So Richards was another question mark. And then there was still the question mark of Wea's fitness. So it was exciting to see. I know Burrhalter had hinted at it in the lead up that way I looked, you know, fit to start. And so I'm obviously also very happy when I see Tim Wea's name in starting 11. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. I guess, yeah, I guess Richards over Robinson, Miles Robinson is the only other sort of surprise, but it seems like the rest of the lineup kind of writes itself, and it was a lineup that I was really happy with. And we're going to talk about the action and Pulisic's impotence and our trouble generating danger on set pieces and Ferreira's performance in more depth and falloff and performance from the team as a whole late in the second half. But first, a little housekeeping. Thank you to everyone who has signed up for the Patreon in the past week or so. That's been really encouraging. Please consider joining.

you haven't and I'm happy to answer questions. Our email is scuffed pod at gmail.com. And there are many other ways to reach us. And also a more fun bit of housekeeping. This insane, potentially sub-zero game in St. Paul is still happening outdoors on Wednesday, as far as we know. And we still plan to be there for our pregame bash and a watch party for those not attending the game, the doors will open at 2 p.m.

at Lake Monster Brewing. Google it. It's a 10-minute walk and two light rail stops from Alian's field. It's a good location. And a club that's close to my heart, Minneapolis City Soccer Club will be there with us. The Crows, that's their mascot, will be in attendance. Kick it forward. An organization that builds many pitches across our home state of Iowa is buying beers for an as yet undetermined number of people who show up.

So that's a nice treat. And we'll try to get Rondos going in the parking lot. You're going to bring a ball, right, Greg? I'm flying in. I will have a ball with me. It's going to be tough if you're, I mean, so you might. need to appropriately planned footwear for rondoes that might not necessarily be appropriate for attending the stadium in minus five degree weather.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to rondo in my boots for sure. And I don't mean soccer boots. And then I, and finally, I do hold out hope that we can do some collective singing. I'm going to arrange some, arrange a base section, especially if it looks like a nine point window is within reach. So we'll see. and then after some of us leave for the game

there will be a watch party at Lake Monster Brewing so I see no excuse for missing this get-together if you are within 100 miles of the Twin Cities. Let's get to the timeline. Here we go. Early on, we're pressing high, of course, and I thought right in the first minute we got a good sense of what McKinney was up to last night.

He wins the ball coming back towards his own goal on the sideline and then combines with Adams and Dest and Waya gets fouled, waya gets fouled coming back to the ball. And I also noticed that El Salvador was doing a little pressing. Did you notice that? Yeah. And it's,

I don't know if I would even go as far as to call it pressing. It was a high line of confrontation. So it's kind of like if there's a gray area between those two things, they were not dropping back, right? They weren't dropping deep. They were setting up in their shape. They weren't, I didn't think they were necessarily like setting traps to try to take it.

Or more importantly, any time they did seem like they would start to have us buttoned up. Like we so easily just navigated around the defender closest to the ball. I don't know if you noticed that. It seemed like that was the trend for me, the big trend of the game. And the one that I worry about the most because I feel like it's the least likely to carry over against better teams. You mean the way McKinney and Musa could just skip by people? Yeah, almost anyone was doing it. Dest was doing it. It's like they had us, they had us dead to rights. Like all of our passing

options were taken away. Uh, the defender on the, on our ball carrier was like in position to make a tackle and we would just grown, grown up our way past them. Like it was, it was, several positions where it was just sort of a man against boys. And it was just almost like too easy. And I, I love watching it. But that is my like one concern is that this was so easy that it's going to give us like this false sense of confidence that we can do this. Uh, that in another game, because there were times, too, where we did kind of lose it. Yeah, I was just going to say that. And even then, it was like, okay, but El Salvador just doesn't do anything with it because

they're not very good. Like, that is sort of just the bottom line for however courageous it is that Hugo has playing the way they're trying to play, they're not very good. Yeah, I mean, I was going to say any false confidence we had from that first half should have should have been erased by the second half. I mean, I thought McKinney was pretty... McKinney himself was pretty sloppy in the second half. And, you know, Dest had several, I think, messy touches.

Musa, maybe a couple, but Adams also was a little bit untidy. So, yeah, I hope that's not something that we take away from that game that we're going to be able to skip by people all the time. Because McKinney would skip by the first guy. And then as the game went on, you know, he would maybe even skip by the second guy, then the third guy, he would lose it. Or, you know, you'd have to, you'd have to poke it away to somebody else or something. Right. Like, you'd end up having to, even though you weren't necessarily losing it, you were definitely, like, breaking up any rhythm that we might have been establishing. So the actual movement of the ball and switching the point of attack was slowing down, even though we were maybe, like, embarrassing a couple of El Salvador defenders.

Yeah. And then, of course, Pulisic was famously. not even skipping by the first guy for the most part. Yeah, that was the other big contrast was while McKinney and Musa and Dest and even Adams would for sure just like grown up their way past a guy and then the next guy would show up. All of our guys were using their body to just continue to protect the ball until they could either release it to somebody even if that broke up the rhythm of the play or then beat the next guy in a similar way of just leveraging their way past him. That was not Pulisic.

Polisic was like trying to beat a player, didn't really seem to have a plan. Even if he beat one guy, the second guy would come and like clean it up and we lost it. Like we lost it. It was an actual turnover. Yeah. Pulisic. A minute of the chronology we have now, I think, identified the key themes of the entire game. Right.

And I'll have to decide how much of this chronology to get into because it's very detailed. It's very long and detailed. So the 3.30 mark, a nice work for McKinney to rescue a little bit of an Adams hospital ball, pokes it to Musa, Musa to Pulisic, and then Pulisic tries to play sort of between the lines to Ferreira, takes a poor touch, and it goes back the other way. 445, we've got Pulisic running into Robinson as he skips by a guy on the left. So Robinson just sort of hesitates and then blows by a guy. And he kind of trips and he kind of runs into Pulisks.

There, which is, I think a... They slammed into each other. Like, they slammed into each other. That was nuts. I was worried that one of them or both of them was going to be seriously hurt by that. But it did sort of seem like their chemistry in a microcosm a little bit. I don't know what exactly Pulisic was trying to do there coming back to the ball. I don't know.

The camera angle was strange on it, right? Because they, like, zoomed in on Robinson. Suddenly, like, it's a smash cut into a smash. collision. And I wonder if like, it kind of looked like maybe like a football play where Pulisic was maybe getting blocked into the runner, is what I was wondering.

Oh, yeah. That, that's very well could be the case. So should we keep going in the timeline? Or should we get into Pulisic right now? Since we've already sort of thrown a little bit of shade. I think him smashing into Anthony Robinson is the perfect time to, to dissect his game a little bit.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, so let's start with what Burrhalder said after the game. He was asked about Pulisic's lack of effectiveness and he said, yeah, we'd like him to be more. I'm definitely paraphrasing here, but yeah, we'd like him to be more effective. I'm happy with his effort tonight. We don't. One thing that he should have done better is stretch the back line. And he was dropping too deep and that was for.

forcing Antony to be too deep, and it was also forcing Musa to be too deep. And so, you know, when Burrhalter says something like that, my response is, okay, that sounds like a good explanation for what was going wrong with Pulisic. Why was he doing that? Like, are, is he just, is he not, does he not understand the instructions or is he not getting the instructions or is he just straight up disobeying the instructions? Right, because it wasn't a one-off, right? There wasn't one-off.

He was constantly coming all the way back to pick the ball up off the centerback sometimes, like the way like Michael Bradley used to do. So it was not just like, oh, a couple of times he did this. It was constant. Yeah. And it's and it's, and then you combine that with him not being able to beat anybody. Or maybe, you know, like you said, maybe he beats the first guy, but not the second guy. and you got a recipe for a for a left side left sided attack that was really hard to watch last night

in contrast to the right side which was really fun to watch yeah i mean i don't think there's any question i think it was pretty obvious in real time that pool sick was the one struggling the most i think it's also just very obvious you know because of the other overwhelming information we have about our player pool that christian pool is our most dangerous player you know in a sense So it's one of those things where you could pull him, you could bench him because he's struggling. Or you could say he is really struggling out there. At any moment, he is capable of, you know, doing three people and creating a goal out of nothing or creating a chance out of nothing. So I'm like sympathetic to being like looking at our bench and saying, okay, he's really struggling.

You still just leave him in. You just roll the dice with the player with the talent that he has. And you leave him in there and you try to fix things for the next time out. or you try to fix him in real time if you can. But it's still more just like you got to find a way with the chalkboard with the tape on the training ground to get more out of him. Yeah. I mean, we've been saying this for a long time. We need to get more out of Pulisic.

He hasn't. I mean, this has become conventional wisdom now. It was kind of, you know, you could get crucified for saying this six months ago. But he has not been that good for the national team for a long time. He did score the game winner against Mexico. he did score two game winners against Mexico in the last 12 months. Those are huge goals. That's important.

But like moment by moment in games, he's not been that effective for the U.S. Now here's, I'm not saying this is for sure true, but I'm saying it's something we should consider, which is that are his, you know, he's had like 11 soft tissue injuries in the last two years. And something like that. And it looks to me like he is not blowing by people the way he was two years ago. Or let's say, let's say, Project Restart Pulisic after, like in the middle of the pandemic. Right up until he did his hammy against Arsenal, right? That was the end of it. Yeah.

And then he, you know, he's had some, he's had some flashes since then too. But I wonder, you know, that him not being, him not doing the things that fit well. within the larger scheme of the team, which is kind of what was going on last night, for whatever reason, is it a lot more forgivable when you feel like at any moment he can beat three guys and create a goal out of nothing.

And I'm watching him play now, and I don't see that same electricity, you know, pulsing off of him that I feel like I used to see. And I do wonder if, like, I don't know, maybe he needs some rest or maybe he has, like, you know, lost a step. I'm not saying it's true, but. Well, it's a worry, right? It's a sort of creeps in your head and you say, all right,

and would another 30 degrees Fahrenheit help him to not have these soft tissue injuries in this? Because I also think about those things. And when we're talking about explosiveness, like it's harder to explode out of an ice block. So I like have real worries about that. And I guess I don't have a good answer. I'm very happy that during his struggles, we have had the kind of performances we've had from other attackers because that has been, you know, very obviously the difference

in our World Cup qualifying campaign. Last cycle, everything was pool sick. All of the goals, not that he didn't have help, but he was involved in basically every single goal we scored in the cycle. And now we've had to play without him a lot. And even when he plays, he's sort of been hit or miss, a lot of miss, yet we've still had plenty of attacking firepower. And that has just been huge.

And it's mostly in the shape of a Timwaya. Yeah. And Gio Raina's waiting in the wings. I don't know that he, you know, some people have made the point that Pulisic, Pulisic is just not a player who is comfortable as a line stretching, you know, making runs in behind winger. Like that's not his game. I'm not sure I agree with that, although I would say that's that, that, that, that,

more or less fits what we have seen from him as a player. Like, can he be coached into it? I don't know. But if that's a problem with Pulisic, it's just as much of a problem with Gio Raina. Gio Rana is not an offball merchant the way Tim Wea is. He's an on ball. He's an on ball guy. He's a get the ball to my feet and I'll do something kind of player. So I don't know what the solution is over there on left wing. Matt Doyle, well, go ahead. I'll quit jabbering. No, no, no, Doyle's take is good. I'll just, I'll just run with it now. I think Doyle's basically just saying flip him over to the right. Don't have him creep inside from the left like most right footers want to cut in. Put him on the right, simplify sort of his job. You've got that you could put Dest over there who's very good at interpreting space so he could react very well off of Cool Sick. I'm totally just taking like Doyle's take. This isn't me adding my own. He's got a pretty thorough examination of this possibility because Anthony Robinson on the left is very predictable. Like he wants to do one. thing. He's not going to interpret a bunch of space. He wants to get around that sideline and go.

So, he's more of like a scalpel that you can sort of deploy in a lot of different ways. So he could fit very well with Poulsick, where there isn't a lot of chemistry over there on the left at the moment. And then Tim Wea, I will kind of interject here and add on to what Doyle saying, Tim Wea is an absolute like physics, geometry, space merchant. Like he gets the most out of everything in every situation. So I have no issues with him figuring it out. And we've seen him on the left against Costa Rica in that home game. And even more so against Jamaica in his cameo in his first World Cup qualifying appearance in the October window from the left, creating all kinds of danger in like a 15 minutes sub appearance. So I absolutely think it's worth trying,

testing out pool sick to the right, way on the left. And then the last thing I'll add, I know I've kind of covered Doyles and my take on that flip. I think Gio Raina is a totally different player, though, even though he likes to come in and play on the ball, he can do that in the midfield. Whereas Poulis, it can't. Pools that comes in the midfield tries all his fancy stuff and just gets wrecked over and over.

Sometimes it's a foul. Sometimes it's not. When you dribble into three bodies, a lot of times they can muscle you out without fouling you. Giorina is not that. Giorina will go into that, you know, forest of bodies, and he will come out the other way with maybe the defenders on a

ground. Yeah, that's a good point. So maybe he, maybe Raina does make more sense on that left side, you know, if, uh, if the way of Poulosick switcharoo doesn't work out. Yeah. And again, it might be where Raina can play either side and way I can play either side. Aaronston seems comfortable on either side. So it's like it's, we're just trying to keep Poolecic on the left, but I, I mean, I am 100% in favor of trying him out on the right. Obviously, there's so much more that he has in store that we aren't getting right now. Hopefully. Yeah.

What about four, I mean, we're jumping all over the place here. We're getting way out of order. But like, what about four Sunday, six point Sunday in Camelton, Ontario? Do you want to just switch them for that game and have Pulisic on the right way on the left? I'd take that in a heartbeat. I mean, again, there's so many considerations. Wayas just back from injury. He had just started once for Leal coming in.

So he might, well, it was great that we could start him yesterday. He might not be fit to start another game right away. I kind of just am not that bothered about it because there's reasons to think that running Poulosick back could be bad for him fitness-wise. We also know that he could just sort of be that stubborn, dribbling turnover machine. like that is now at least a real possibility we have to reckon with when we put them into games. So out of all of the wingers we have on the roster, to start the game, I'm just like pick two, have them work their socks off in the Canadian cold on the turf,

make sure the game is close and then choose your guy for the end game. The last 30 minutes. Yeah. That's where we try to get the points. Yeah. Yeah, I like the idea. I was going to say this to the end, but I like the idea of starting Jordan Morris, not because he's so good, but because he, you know,

he just seems like we could use him to bludgeon the other team. He would stretch the backline. He is used to playing on artificial turf. But let's get back to the timeline. Eight minutes. We're four minutes in. Yeah. So we stopped at the Pulisic-Robinson collision.

In the 540 mark, El Salvador gets in behind on a throw-in. We just get cut open on a restart. I'm not, I watched it back a few times. I'm not exactly sure who to blame. But anyway, it's a good cut back to the penalty marker and Dest intervenes to snuff it out. So this trend, I think, played out a couple of times. And it's like, it's Anthony Robinson. I'm not saying it's his fault.

I'm saying that what's noticeable to me is he ends up defending really far up the sideline. Like, far more much closer to El Salvador's goal than, like, the ball is. So he leaves a ton of room back there. and it becomes like one of Musa or Chris Richards' job to defend in that space in his stead. And it looked like they just weren't always sure who should go. So they definitely didn't have it sorted like ahead of time. So the ball gets put into that space. And then they're trying to figure it out on the fly.

And there's like these little moments of hesitation, which are costly. It's costly in just your mentality as you're going up to close down when you weren't fully committed from the start. At least that's how it works with goalkeepers, like that little hesitation before you go. So that's kind of what I was picking up on And I think that's kind of what played out here Was a little uncertainty about whose job it was to defend the play And then poor execution once we went out Yeah

Yeah I thought Richards was a little hesitant to come out For sure And then the ball got pulled back Inside of him Inside of his body Eight minute mark Good good good from McKinney

To combine with Adams on our right side who plays it to desk and we spring Wea down the line He can't beat his guy And it's a goal kick But that's a harbinger of things to come There's a lot of this

Just lovely action Down the right side And I have nine minute, ninth minute McKinney is absolutely dealing Fowled after doing a couple guys Ref should have given advantage on that play There's a couple of these in the game I thought Zimmer finds way out over the top

And down that right side again and Wayal wins a corner. Let me jump in on that just because I'm sort of the resident Brooks defender on the internet, certainly, and on these hot-pass airways. Zimmerman was rough with his long distribution at Jamaica in the 1-1 draw, and I think that really hurt us. John Brooks is very good at long distribution from the back. Zimmerman was much, much better today last night, like way better.

Even his service that wasn't going directly to us that we would win, was in a spot where it forced El Salvador to make a play on it, and then we were just cleaning up second balls. So that was a huge improvement from our long distribution, and it was mostly Zimmerman. I don't think Richards had much long distribution. He didn't attempt much in that Jamaica game. But this was definitely a mark in Zimmerman's favor in this match.

Yeah, I totally agree. I thought almost all the incisive passing from our centerbacks came from Zimmerman, maybe 100% of it. And it's not really a knock on Richards because I think he was pretty steady back there. But like you said, he didn't try that much. I also do think, and I think this was the case against Jamaica a little bit, I do think that El Salvador were funneling the ball back there to Zimmerman. So I thought that was like an interesting thing to note that he tended to be the guy

collecting it after El Salvador sent numbers over. They were like shadowing Adams a little bit with their two forwards. was one of them would shadow Adams, and they just wouldn't really care if Zimmerman had it. And they would just kind of watch him, you know, walk up the field a little bit and then pick his pass out. And I think that was like by design on El Salvador's part. And Zimmerman, you know, essentially like executed very well for what they were giving us. And I could be wrong about this, but I thought I perceived that our plan was to funnel the distribution through Richards early. Like there were times when Zimmerman would just play it back to Richards and Richards was the one who was trying to carry it forward.

And it didn't result in any, you know, incisive passes between the lines. But at least at first it seemed like that's what we were trying to do. And El Salvador was, like you said, El Salvador was trying to stop us from doing that. Well, problem solved. Zimmerman just started playing some good passes. Yeah. And that becomes a reliable, that becomes a reliable feature of Zimmerman's play. I mean, we are really cooking at that point.

Yeah. Yeah. Hard to know. This is El Salvador at home. this is this is something that kind of went by unnoticed it seemed like in the broadcast

but on the ensuing corner kick after that Zimmerman ball to weigh down the right side line it's a good corner from Pulisic he hit several good corners this time and it was a free header for Eunice Musa I mean free header is a little bit you know makes it sound better than it was

but he was not marked and he had a chance to head it and he didn't do much with it that was our first shot of the game. Yeah, it was free in the sense that he didn't have a mark on him. It was really difficult, I think, in the sense that it looked like maybe it skimmed right off of somebody, you know, three yards before it got to him. So that's where you get that like zero reaction from the guy and a ball essentially just hits him. That's what it looked like.

Yeah. So I think that's what it was. But you're right. There was no, no replay of like, oh, guy alone in the box, ball falls to him. he headed it i think on frame but it just hit a defender like in you know in its core somewhere um a cold cold weather noticeably reduces reaction time i'm just going to throw that out there that is a really real thing real thing because your brain is uh overloaded with uh the question of survival it's fighting so hard to make sure blood is going to every part of your body uh 1120 mark i have

Adams intervening very nicely to snuff out a little slip ball into the box after a switch from on Riequez, no, I mean, a switch from Hernandez to Enriquez on the left wing, a nice play from El Salvador. And then Enriquez kind of stands his guy up, his guy being dest and then tried to slip it in behind for a runner. And Adam saw it. You know, it's funny, like, McKinney was closer to the play than Adams was, but it was like, but Adams came in like, oh, yeah, this is definitely my job to, to, to, cover this and he draws a foul. A 12 minute mark. McKenny's so clean on the half turn, this time in the left channel,

and he springs Ferreira, who stands up his guy. This is the first good moment from Ferreira and plays it back to the top of the box to Pulisic, who honestly does not look dangerous. So this is another thing. Burhalter talks about what we need is Pulisic in the penalty area. That's where he does his damage. and we actually did get Pulisic in the penalty area a few times. I'm not saying he got the ball like at the six,

but he was in the penalty area with the ball at his feet. With some space, a little bit of space, right? Yeah. And this was one of those times. And it just didn't look like it was going to come off. And he scuffed the shot. I don't think it was going on frame anyway,

but it was blocked. And there you go. That was a nice little opportunity for us. This is something Donald Norman has pointed out, repeatedly is that the U.S. has to have the highest percentage of its shots blocked of any team in Concaf

and I don't know if it's a function of like other teams really committing bodies back there like, you know, desperation defending in any situation to make sure that that ball doesn't make his way to the goal. Or if it's us just getting a little bit too I tend to think it's us getting a little bit too rushed in the final moments

and not having the presence of mind to like realize that the shooting situation you have now has caused the defense to scramble desperately. And this is actually the time to look to exploit them for like the little cutback or the little slip pass because we do. We have an outrageous number of shots block. I know it's really easy and almost ridiculous to like say this Champions League winning

player should like doesn't know enough to cut the ball back against a scrambling defender. But it really might be the case that like when you play a team with the quality drop off that we play in the region compared to like what you're playing against at the higher levels. Like there might be more of this scrambling defense that you don't see as often at the highest level. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you really slow that play down, Pulisic could have just cut it back to McKinney maybe for like, you know, who looked like he had a window to look at the goal and shoot. But, you know, I mean, that's real Monday morning quarterbacking right there.

I know. I'm going to do it again on another chance, too, because it's, again, on the replay with the, with the, benefit of slow motion and watching from, you know, the angle we get on TV. Like, you just see how this crops up and like, I'm hoping that we do address this stuff because this is stuff that if you're thinking about it, but doing it on the tape, it might help prepare you mentally to pull it off in the game. Yeah. So lots of stuff happening here.

1225 McKinney Springs Dest down the right side. His hopeful cross is cut out. There are many hopeful crosses in this game. 1350. McKinney tries to do a bit too much, but it works out, pokes it to Dest. Desk pass to Wea to his right out wide, doesn't have the right weight on it,

and it's cut out by El Salvador. I did not think, you know, Desk had some good moments, but he did not have a super sharp night, in my opinion. Good in flashes, not peak Dest. Yeah, and this opponent is, certainly as we learned throughout the night, this is a perfect opponent for Desk to sort of

mix tape his way through. a couple of times, like he was going to have some of those and he did, and those are delightful. But even going back to that cross that you'd pointed out just before where McKenny springs him in, it puts him in a little bit. Like, he's crossing it when there's no one around him. Like he could very much go in and see if he could mix tape a guy in the box with his pal, Tim Wea, you know, in close connection. But it's just like, oh, no, we'll just whip it in and hope for the best.

We're not even really trying to pick guys out. We're just firing it into the mixer. Yeah. to our 5-8 center forward, Jesus Ferreira. Okay, in the 16th minute, we get our first pretty good chance. McKenney switches it from the right side

to Anthony Robinson on the left, on the left wing. And, you know, there's a little bit of a ping ponging that goes on, but he eventually gets it to Ferreira in the box. Who takes, I mean, do you want to take this? Because this is really nice. So the ball gets like, like you said, pinballed back out to Anthony Robinson,

at which point Ferreira is in his defense. cover shadow, really intelligent movement to like, uh, back pedal away from the goal line into the window that Robinson can hit him into, which again, like, this is good movement in the box. So for all the stuff about like, oh, he's a false nine, he's not a real nine, like, he's executing here within 10 yards of the goal in a way that makes us dangerous. Robinson hits a fairly hot pass into his feet and he like flicks it up. The El Salvador defender comes in to bite really aggressively in that desperation defending mode that I was just talking about. And instead of like smashing it into him, Ferreira takes like another really

tidy juggling touch around him and now has a clear look at the goal. The defender actually is going in so wildly that he stabs into Ferreira's plant foot. 100% could have gone down and gotten a penalty. But instead, you know, sticks with it, gets his free shot and smashes it with his left foot just over the goal at the near post, trying to roof it. So, again, as a Ferreira fan, I really enjoy watching that

level of execution and technique. I don't, I'm not like, I don't judge the strikers when they miss these chances. It's more about creating it. And for me, only Jesus Ferreira in our pool, uh,

of strikers is creating that chance. Yeah. Probably. Probably. Thing is like I, you know, I've played a lot of soccer in my life and I've always been a really bad finisher,

you know. And I judge myself for that for not being good at, like, for like, you know, even if I make a lot of, nice play and get around somebody and I sky it over. I'm like, well, that's just a lack of concentration bells, you know, you need to meditate

more. Right. And so what it always comes back to is if it was just purely concentration as the, as the reason this happened, then there would be those players who are just excellent concentrators who destroy the XG that all of the bad concentrators diminish. You know what I mean? But that's just not the case. Like everyone, everyone in the data pool in the data sample, in the data sample who takes shots

in professional soccer games finishes them at a pretty terrible rate. Like it's just always lower than you think. Whatever you think of as a gimmie, almost, because we're going to come up to another one, which is just an absurdly high chance of conversion. But this one is not that high of a chance.

It's a really good looking shot in a soccer game. It goes down as a very good chance. But it's still not like a gimmie. I will say it creates an interesting contradiction for the miss later on, where people are like, oh, well, he's rusty, because obviously I was jumping in on on how Jesus Frere doesn't get rusty because he's made out of silk. But like, you can't, you kind of can't have it both ways.

It's like the touches he had to create that shot for me kind of signified that rust isn't really the issue here. Like he, his touches to get this shot off were just as clean as you can possibly get. Okay. Yeah. It was a really nice action. And too bad he couldn't get it on frame. in the 19th minute

we get our best chance of the game so far easily a really nice little combo from Adams and Musa on the left side and Musa turns and hits a perfect switch for Desk which I think should not go unremarked upon it was perfectly in stride you know that kind of pass with the right weight

to the right foot is it really does make all the difference and Dest is charging forward and he crosses it um way of flicks it on with his head from you know sort of the near post channel and it drops for Ferreira on the back post and he misses it. You guys all saw the play. It was a big miss.

Before we get to the miss, I just want to again talk about how aesthetically pleasing that Musa to Desk exchange was, the ball that Musa hit, and then the camera switch right to desk as he's taking it in stride, like leaping with his first touch to just like somehow just like a hurdler, though even though he's jumping, he somehow manages to not break stride. just really good soccer aesthetics. It's a beautiful game to watch sometimes. It can be.

It sure can be. That's what keeps us coming back. And then, you know, the presence of mine from Wea to just flick it at the back post is really nice, too. Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that Wea was passing that ball to Ferreira? I'm saying he was passing it to the back post. All right.

I am very skeptical of that. I feel like Wayo was definitely trying to glance that ball inside the far post for a goal. But okay, that's fair. I hadn't even occurred to me that he might just be trying to set up a tap in. I mean, yeah, I don't know that he intended to put it there. But, you know, when you're trying to glance a ball to the backpost, you're kind of also just hoping that somebody's crashing. I mean, at least that's what the textbook would say, right?

All right, there you go. He could score. He could also set up a tap in. Two good outcomes. As it happened, he set up a tap in. and then Ferreira tried, like I said earlier, tried to outside of the boot it with his right foot and, you know, just got it all wrong.

Say-L-Vee. Yeah, that's the thing. You still won the game. I don't have too much to add to it. Like, he just didn't get the touch down. Like, he didn't get his right foot over it and tap it into the goal. I know there's like, I think Twelman was saying

he's got to use his left. I know you're saying he needs to run through it with his, with his, like, pubic bone. Whatever, you know. But sometimes, I mean, you can miss those too. You could do those things and still miss it. I feel like the technique he chose is a perfectly legitimate one to attempt. He just didn't get over the ball enough to put it in with his right.

Fair enough. That's that one for all to talk about how like it's always a worse chance than you think. That one was not. That came in it like gets finished like 80% of the time. Yeah. Although the height of it and everything does complicate and I'm not sure XG really. you know, depending on which model you're using,

always accounts for all that. But 1945, so the 20th minute, great entry pass from Zimmerman to Ferreira. Another one of these Zimmerman passes, just worth mentioning. And then in the 21st minute, 22nd minute, Robinson plays a pass. I think he was aiming for Pulisic,

but it went, it sort of sliced through to Ferreira. If he meant to pass it to Ferreira, Anthony's more of a passing genius than I thought he was. And Ferreira and Wea can't quite connect at the top of the box. I kind of wish Wea had solved that a little better because I thought Ferreira put it into his path. I don't know. No, I know what you're saying.

It's a difficult one for me. Like Ferreira gets the ball to Wea, so it's like he kind of did his job. But Wea didn't have much he could do with the pass coming in from Ferrer. That's true. I don't think it means Ferreira hit a bad pass. I just mean it was like, okay Tim here's here's the ball I'm giving it to you you're in a dangerous spot see if you're

good enough to do something with it and sometimes he will be but it wasn't like a a gimmie where he had very obvious options with his with his next move um so it just kind of fizzled yeah sometimes the lines just don't fall in pleasant places you know when you when you're receiving the ball at the top of the box uh 23rd minute a poor pass from adams is worth clocking uh he gives it away it goes completely unpunished by El Salvador. And at this point in the game, I thought the referee was blowing the whistle a lot. I mean,

this has been discussed on some other podcasts and some other writings. But people are talking about how the ref kind of ruined the rhythm of the game by whistling so many fouls, but not calling in yellows to prevent the commission of so many fouls. I just looked it up. And in Costa Rica, so there were 35 fouls called in this game,

the most on the night. in Conca Gaff in the four games, slate, 34 in Costa Rica, Panama, which was also a pretty disjointed game. And then 31 in Honduras, Canada, and 16 in Mexico, Jamaica. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to make of all that. Is that, was that an issue in your mind?

Like, actually, the only thing about the referees that stood out to me, and I'm kind of surprised it kind of took off as something people were talking about, was we actually We got a couple of like what I would call soft fouls in areas that it was really risky to assume that we were going to get fouls called in our favor. That's the one thing I noticed. There were a couple of times where. Oh, really? Well, like we're talking about how Musa and McKinney and even Adams both would just hold onto the ball, supremely confident that El Salvador could not take it. There were times where El Salvador did take it by knocking us down in a way that wasn't an incredibly obvious foul.

And when we talk about, you know, like the reputation Concaf has, and I think for some U.S. fans, this idea. that we get the short end of the stick a lot, there were a couple of like bailout calls that saved us from turnovers deep, deep in our defensive third. I did not notice those, but I guess that's because I'm a... A hopeless homery, yeah,

I totally think that's the case. Yeah. 24th minute that... El Salvador got that set piece from 30 yards that Hernandez hit through the wall, but no trouble for Turner at all. It wasn't even on frame. Hold on.

I'm going to clock that one too just because this was 30 degree weather. And Turner catches that ball clean, right? No rebound. He brings it to the ground, nice and tidy. If it's five degree weather, like, I'm terrified of any attempt to think you're going to bring it in clean. Like, I feel like, so just clocking it for St. Paul, in that situation in St. Paul, same thing.

Like, I don't even want our goalkeepers trying to catch it. I want, like, strong palms to push that thing out for a throw in. Yeah. Okay. I mean, ideally, the field is supposedly heated. I don't know how much difference that meant. It's the ball in your fingers. Like your fingers are going to have zero sensation.

And like the ball is a rock. And it just won't like catch the way that you are used to catching it for the past 15 years of your life. Yeah, man. Those little black gloves that everybody wears that is not going to help. The goalkeeper gloves are even worse. And they're usually like a little bit wet. And it's just, it's. Oh, my.

God. Like it's a, it's, it's, it's not going to be like what you are trained to do. All your muscle memory is not going to function the same way at your fingertips. Uh, 25th minute. We get, uh, that McKinney back heel in the buildup to Dest. Um, just lovely to watch. Dest to Wea and down the line and Wayas crosses cut short. Cut up.

Uh, that's just, that's the same thing as we've been seeing the whole game is waya just running down the channel and then somebody playing a ball that sort of curls in in front of him from the outside. So it's not like he's running right up right up the sideline. It's more in the channel. And again, it just feels like so natural, right? It just feels so easy for those guys on the right side to combine in that way. And this is just what I want to see more of when we have the talent advantage that we have in some of these games.

But like Pulisic is not going to make that run. Like he doesn't make that run. No disagreement here. He's going into sort of clutter things up. and he wants the ball at his feet and then he'll come up with the plan after he gets the ball to his feet. Is he, if you put him on the right, is he going to make that run on the right? So I guess. Or is he just going to, well, go ahead.

I think the hope or the, maybe the assumption is that his starting position would be different. Like, way it goes from in to out on the right. And I think the idea might be that Poulsick would wait for the ball out there, the way he sort of just wants the ball at his feet. And it might be Serginio Dest that, like, again, reads where Poulosick is. and goes where he needs to go, and Pulisic almost becomes like the wingback or like the widest player out on the sideline. I don't know for sure if that's sort of what Doyle's thought is

in his great Pulisic flip dissertation. But for me, that's something that I could see is if Pulisic wants to just wait for the ball to come to him, stick him out on the right and let Dest go wherever he wants to go. He can't do, Pulcic can't do that on the left. He can't wait out there because Anthony Robinson wants to go out there. Yeah. And Antony Robbins is not going to do the underlap. I just, I just, yeah, I guess that's what it's going to have to be because I do not see Pulisic doing, doing that kind of enterprise that Wea does, just constantly making those runs and stretching the defense.

Anyway, 29th minute, we get that one good El Salvador chance. And good chances is a little bit of a strong. stretch because it was like, I don't know, less than a tenth of a goal of XG. But Zimmerman plays an untidy pass to Dest and Dest loses a duel on that in that moment. And it's moved across the middle, pushed out wide to Alex Roldon, who has a little bit of space and time and he just takes a good pull. And it goes a little bit wide. So I think, I don't know, it was like a foot wide or something like pretty close to the post. and that was the best El Salvador chance of the night. Yeah, close to the post, close to Turner's hand.

No idea if the future Arsenal man would have had it or not. Just notably, because when you said the ball, you know, was turned over from Zimmerman, moved to the middle. Bad pass from Zimmerman, right? Like playing it, trying to play it off the channel. And then a bad reaction in this instance from Tyler Adams, who kind of gambled to come try to take the ball from El Salvador. And it's another one of those where like,

it's just that confidence that El Salvador can't possibly combine past me because it's El Salvador, and they do combine past him, like, in this case, kind of comfortably, and that's what frees them to shift the ball to the right to Roldon. And then with Adams jumping on that transition moment to try to cut it out early, like, there was no corresponding reaction for Moussa to quickly react and defend the space that Adams has left. So we basically just left our six came out, and there was no, like, natural reaction to go defend. But for Mousa to cover for the six, Anthony Robinson again is so far up.

field that he's not even like an option to come help this defense which is again by design but it's something kind of keep track of is if we do turnover we are very reliant on Tyler Adams either making the right decision or just executing regardless

because we it isn't it doesn't seem natural right now that we cover him if he messes up interesting I hadn't thought of that 30th minute good spell from El Salvador and we start to look sloppy, especially Pulisic.

He has like two giveaways in 30 seconds here. And then Ferreira is fouled hard by Dominguez. I feel like I'm turning into that annoying guy who always talks about the referee, but it seemed like that should have been a yellow card. And it was not. And, you know, the fouls just kept coming. 30th minute, Musa does well to float it to desk

kind of in behind wide right. And his cross is cut out again, yielding a harmless corner kick. And then in the 31st minute way is filed pretty hard by Tamacus, no call. And Tyler Adams has to race in behind to cut out a ball that went in behind. Really calmly done by Adams, right? And so that's where I'll kind of use this opportunity too,

because when he races back to catch that ball, his first touch on the bouncing ball is to take it out towards the sideline. Did you notice that it felt like we were really reluctant to put the ball back to Turner's feet? Did you get that sense? I didn't, actually. So I really think this might be the case. And, you know, when you were talking about, you know, the way El Salvador is funneling us, it's interesting. El Salvador never ran at Turner when the ball did get to him.

They were not interested in trying to, like, force a mistake from him. But it did seem like when they put our centerbacks under a little bit of pressure doing their funneling, it seemed like our centerbacks were also reluctant to use Turner to relieve that pressure and potentially invite El Salvador to go chasing after him. So I thought I noticed that. Now again, Turner was essentially mistake-free when he did get the ball. But I honestly thought there was a little bit of us always looking for other solutions rather than going back to him, even if it meant playing into like a short side of the field.

It was just like, no, we'll do this. We'll turn our hips back to the short side under a little bit of pressure. rather than resetting through our goalkeeper. I don't know. I could be imagining it, but that's what it felt like in real time. Like, oh, I wouldn't even just come back to the keeper there way,

way simpler. But we didn't. Man, I didn't notice that either. But I did notice that, especially late in the game, this is something we could skip in the timeline later. Turner did have a couple of really nice moments of distribution, particularly that left-footed first time hit out to McKinney.

All right. So, like my goalkeeper. youth coaching background is like I got I got like fussy in the moment when he did that because the pressure was coming from that side so I'm like oh man he just hit that ball against the pressure and that's inviting that like deflected long ball like it's like you always no matter what you play it safe there and if if the pressure's coming from your right side you've got to go out to your left side or up the middle to split but you don't hit it in a way where a guy sticking his leg out could inadvertently almost put the ball on your goal but the actual

I mean, it was, it was ballsy. The actual touch on the bass was great. Yeah. Okay. We get a good Musa shot blocked in the 34th minute. I'm going to try to go through these fast. Yeah, yeah. Let's speed it up.

Take it forever. Ferreira. Ferreira is a little fortunate to get it to Musa, but then he's cutting in kind of like he did for Valencia against, I let it go Madrid a little bit, and his shot is blocked. Reference to your earlier comment about us getting a lot of shots blocked. Des shot kind of in the opposite. coming in the opposite direction from the opposite side.

A few minutes later is blocked after some good work from Pulisic on the left touchline to back heel release. Robinson for a cross that spills to death and then he skitters across the top of the box and pulls one. Again, doesn't beat the first defender. Some lovely interplay from Musa McKinney and Pulisick through the middle. Pulisick springs Robinson cross-blocked. 38th minute, poor Adams giveaway on the dribble in the attacking third

goes unpunished. Real quick, just because you're talking about the number of crosses, we have blocked. If you can get on to Bob Morocco's Twitter timeline, he has a lot of great screen grabs from those moments of the crosses where you can see how not all these are like hopeless situations where we are just firing it in. There are a bunch of them where you should kind of expect

the players of the quality we have to essentially pick a guy out, like to identify where the open player is because we actually outnumber El Salvador at times in the box. and put a ball in a spot where we should actually get like a chance out of it, rather than just being like, oh, well, it got blocks. We didn't even get like the scramble. Like some of these shouldn't have even been scramble. Some of these should have been you've got,

you should be able to pick this player out here in this situation. And we weren't doing it, I guess, is the point. Yeah, we just weren't, we just weren't precise enough. And, you know, right at the end of the half, we get a chance where McKinney plays it to Pulisic in the middle. So like a nice little pass in the middle. the pocket to Pulisic. And he sort of ricochets past a defender.

It kind of loses a ball, gets it back. Springs Robinson. And this time, the cross finds Wea, who has time to sort of set up a shot and take it. But this one is blocked two. And come on, guys. This is the one where the, like on Wea's back swing, the El Salvador player, like, totally sells out from the outside, sliding in to try to block the shot. And it's like, again, in the, like, hindsight world. like just take a quick touch over to your right way and then you're just looking at the goalie

with every El Salvador defender on the ground selling out for the block. Right, right. I'm hoping that's coming. I'm hoping that's coming where against these, you know, scrambling defenses, we punish them for that last little desperation play. Yeah, you need just a little bit of guile and calmness, which, as I said before, I have never had as a soccer player. So the half comes and we open the first, the second half with a strong spell of possession in El Salvador's half.

A few more crosses that either hit somebody's head in a kind of a non-threatening way or are blocked. And then the goal comes in the 52nd minute. On a cross. Yep. Well, really? Didn't McGa have floated across? Are we not calling it a cross? I'm calling that just a ball in behind.

That's fair. It's sort of straight down the trip. I was thinking of a different, I was thinking of the Hesu's Fera setup for another play. Okay, yeah. I know which one you're talking about. We'll get to it. But McKenney floats it down the channel to Wea,

and I think this is a really smart way to get around Larin. He sort of lets it ride through both of them and then runs around him and gets the advantage. and then he he sort of comes into a duel with another defender and wins it, leaves the guy on the ground, just gets his foot in first

or second, I can't really tell. And then takes a shot from short, tight angle. I can't really blame him for shooting. I guess some people have suggested he should have passed to Pulisic there. Okay, maybe. But he takes a shot

and it's saved but spins up in the air for Ferrara. and I'll explain this. I do really admire this from Ferreira. There's a lot of things he could do in this moment. And he, I think, wisely decides to head it to Robinson or at least in Robinson's direction. And that ball is spinning in such a way. It's kind of hard to generate the power

to get it over to Robinson. And Ferreira does everything he can to put as much on that pass as he can. And it's just barely enough to get to him in time. And then Robinson measures, it and thrashes it home on the bounce. 1-0 USA. And for me, mostly, that was just a feeling of relief.

I wasn't even feeling joy at that point, just relief. I felt like, I mean, there's definitely that relief. I felt like it was coming. It felt like, yes, there it is. Like, you've had your chances. You've been building these chances. So it definitely felt like it was deserved, not like some kind of smash and grab.

And just watching Waya, do two grownups the way he does like it's just such a rewarding feeling to watch him play soccer I don't know how to explain it and I think it should be noted I mean we were saying you were saying earlier El Salvador is not that good I think

Larin and Tamaccas are pretty good fullbacks you know and so yeah that's definitely a grown up that he did there so 55th minute we get we have two more chances at coming quick succession in the first five minutes after the goal

first, I'll give the buildup on this one. There's kind of a poor McKinney giveaway that goes unpunished in our half. And El Salvador sort of bails us out by playing a really bad pass across the field, and Robinson just steps into it and charges forward. He has Wea a big passing window to pass to Wea. Why did he have such a big passing window, Bells? I don't know. It was for air.

It was for a fair. Because Ferreira was moving out of that space. Ferreira at the last second, like broke across and brought that center back like three steps over to open up that window, Tuea, which I was really again. He's a clever player. He's not just like a midfielder disguised as a forward. I guess this shows how much of an unreliable narrator I am because if Pepe had done that, I probably would have noticed it. But since Ferreira did it, I didn't notice. but I totally I totally get it

and then Robinson's passed away if it's a little better way as on goal but it's not a very good pass it's a little bit behind him so it gets circulated back to McKinney and then McKinney crosses it to Ferreira and Ferreira makes a good cushioned header down to Musa who takes a touch

and then it's a really nice play from Musa too yes it is really good really nice touch And then outside of the boot generates a lot of power on the half folly with the outside of his boot and draws a good reflex save from Gonzalez. That was a nice play that went by kind of quickly in the game as well. And then just moments later, McKinney misses a free header on a corner kick. So at this point, we're getting just extremely unlucky. I feel like.

I think that's fair. I mean, unlucky's tough. It's a great save on Musa's chance. But yeah, to see the McKinney decision and the quality of that clipped ball into Ferreira, Ferreira cushioning a header there rather than trying to snap it at goal. And then Musa still has so much to do with a ball that goes into his chest from four yards away. And then to have the presence of mind to, after his touch with his chest, just immediately take, like, put your plant foot down and smack it with the outside of your right foot.

It's just really good, what would you call it? Improvisation to get that shot off. So a lot of cool things on that sequence, which, again, with the quality we have, we can do this stuff. And it's fun to watch. And I know other people are frustrated because of how tense a one zero soccer game is. But I just felt like it was a, I actually really just enjoyed watching us do some of these things on a soccer field. I agree with that. And I, but I also agree that it was tense because it was one zero.

And after that, McKinney misses the free header, which should be mentioned, that's, it's great. to see us generate some real danger on a set piece. And I, you know, I back McKinney to do better on that opportunity most of the time. After that, things did sort of crumble a little bit for us. Now, I mean, we still won the game. So I'm not complaining about that. But it just didn't seem like it was clicking for most of the last 30 minutes. Now, Pulisic came off in what, the 64, around the 64 minute mark.

Zardis and Morris came on for Ferreira and way in the 72nd minute. Brendan Aronson, by the way, in for Pulisick at 64. So we were replacing Pulisic with, I guess, what we would call a $30 million attacker in Brendan Aronson at this point. You can say that, right? If a team has turned down $30 million, then that makes Aronson a $30 million attacker? Is that, like, that's a for sure true thing. That's like a Fabramano thing.

I think. Yeah, I think it's essentially like... Salzberg had the money on the table and said, we're keeping him. Yeah. Man, I guess. Yeah. They want a shot at Byron. They're taking their shot at Bayern in the Champions League.

Give us Byron. We want Byron. Yeah, I don't know how much to get into the rest of the game. I mean, there's a few chances. Dest dances across the top of the box and taps it to Robinson. in the 85th minute. It puts a decent right-footed effort on frame. Al-Savador kind of slices this up in the 85th minute as well, left to right,

and a cross comes in, and there's a glancing header from Rivas. Hey, so I'm going to throw this out there on this El Salvador chance, and it's, you know, we got to stick to the brand here. There's, like, there are real concerns I still have about Brendan Aronson and his, like, being a little brother. And I know it's like kind of a bit and it's kind of a joke. and he's got the hair and all this. But he really does have some little brother to his game.

And I made a comp of all his games against actual grownups outside the Austrian league, just his last four games, two in the Champions League against Leal and Sevilla. And then our two qualifiers, Mexico and Jamaica from the last window. And he has this like tendency. And it's a real tendency because it cropped up over and over again of like flying into challenges, but not actually doing any real challenging, just like hoping that just by running at somebody, they're going to panic and you'll get the ball. But so many of these like grown up wily physical players just sidestep him really easily.

And that's what happened on this play again. So that's like a real thing that we kind of documented last week in the Discord. And that's what led to this El Salvador chance is Aronson doing all the puppy dog chasing. But finally just like sprinting the guy and they just go past him just as easily as McKinney and Musa have been going past the El Salvador players. And it's not supposed to be like that. It's not supposed to be a symmetric relationship between us going past El Salvador players and El Salvador players going past us. So it's just another thing to, like, keep an eye on for Aronson.

For all of the, like, work rate that he has, there's still this tendency to, like, pretend at that last moment of the actual challenge instead of just like blowing something. He doesn't blow people up. He doesn't run through him, especially, especially when he is the lone defender in the challenge. He's really good at coming in as a secondary defender when someone already has a guy stood up and being a huge nuisance in taking the ball. But when he is the defender coming in, like he just gets sidestepped over and over and over again. Another thing I hadn't really noticed in this game, and I missed that discussion in the Discord is kind of hard to keep up with everything in the Discord. But I was going to say about Aronson, you know, he didn't look, he didn't look threatening when he was on the ball, when he was.

getting the ball wide. Like, they're, like there looked like there was no chance he was going to beat Tamakis. I think Tamakis was still

in the game. So it doesn't, you know, for all my kovetching about Pulisic and all our real, I think real legitimate concerns about the way he's playing,

I don't know, I don't think Aronson is a solution, really. Yeah, neither, neither looked good. Now,

Aronson brought, you know, he brings that energy and he did, there were a couple times where he danced across the, danced across the zone 14 and like one time he found i think he found robinson and

you know some other some other okay moments but um yeah i don't i know there some people are talking about like him him pushing for a starting 11 spot and i just i don't i can't see that really well it's in that mythical full strength right that's what they're talking right i'm saying like first choice 11 yeah yeah uh way and rain aren't going to going anywhere in a full, full strength lineup for me at this point. Right. I will mention, you know, I guess to sort of back up my somewhat wild suggestion that we should start Morris against Canada, that he did. Now, I don't think Morris had an incredibly effective performance either, but he did play that good ball at the back post for McKinney in the 89th minute.

It's a good flick from Zardis to Aronson. Aronson brings it down, does well to bring it down. And this is what I was thinking about. Hold on, hold on. Who hit that ball up to Zardos? Was that? No, I'm just making sure Matt Turner gets a little bit of love. Like, the narrative of him just hoofing everything upfield.

Like, his long ball service was also putting it right on our guy's head. So, again, it's hard to know how much of that is Turner's accuracy versus how much is our dominant players will just get to the ball ahead of El Salvador's players. Okay, so Turner, Turner's ball, Turner's gorgeous ball to Jaze's artist, flipped on to Aronson. Erinson brings it down, takes it across the field, plays it to Morris. And then Morris stands up and makes a nice play. I think he decides he's going to play it to the back post for McKinney.

McKinney heads it back into the mixer and just doesn't quite connect with Zardis. So, you know, just a little positive moment from Jordan Morris. I'm just going to piggyback on that too because, so like the McKinney header to Zardaz, I don't think anyone's saying like Zardes should have done anything really with that ball or anyone really expected him to. But that's still the situation where if it's Jesus Ferreira, there's at least like this little chance that because of what he can do technically with the ball, like he can sort of make something of that. And it's another reason that I like Ferreira in that position because I do think that like that his technical quality will open it will keep some plays alive. Zardez will work to keep plays alive like crazy, but he won't necessarily be able to keep the ball tight to his body under control

the way Jesus Ferrer does. Right. Had to get one more plug-in on the last element of the chronology for Jesus-Ferairair. We skipped a lot of stuff, but I think that's okay. It's fair to say the last 30 minutes. Wouldn't you say we're not the beautiful soccer that we referred to several times earlier in the timeline? Totally. And I don't think we were intending to have it be that way.

I should mention like it seemed like McKinney and Musa before Musa came out and Adams were all like struggling a little bit fitness wise or at least with covering ground and it might be who knows maybe taking guys on nonstop for the first 60 minutes has like an energy cost for the last 30 minutes where you might just not quite have as much in the tank. I thought it was actually apparent on that on that 85th minute one we were talking about where Aronson got skipped past. the commitment and like energy from Musa and McKinney to get back wasn't necessarily there. And that's how it was so easy to move the ball across the field.

Yeah. So that could be an issue. We got another big one coming up. And so McKenny was limping by the end of the game. Berthelter said he was okay. Burhunter said he was okay, which, you know, I suppose maybe he would say that. They may have been a little gas. We were not, I did notice we were not winning a lot of second balls in that passage of the game.

All right. So let's just wrap up this game. I mean, it's all in all very positive, I think. And we did create a ton of chances. The gods of variance are going to smile on us at some point. I think we're about even. I think this was just one of those games where I would talk about Mexico having games like this a lot where it's a very acceptable way to struggle. Like if we're struggling but putting up 3xG, like that's not necessarily, that doesn't mean our whole performance is a shamble. and we need to be terrified of what's playing out on the field. Like that was, for me, we did so many good things that often lead to goals. And that's really all I, when I'm evaluating a game, that's how I evaluate it. Fair enough. We need more from Pulisic. I think we could get a little more, I don't know, tidiness, sharpness from Sergenio Dest.

I mean, everybody could have been a little sharper in this game. Let's throw that out there too because it's something I thought about with Hesus, where if that's him, if that is him out of season, like in Rusty, then if he does get a little of that polish back midseason. And that could be a lot of guys because there are a lot of guys even in season who aren't playing. So, so if this is what we look like out of season, then give it a couple of weeks into the MLS season and some of these guys are getting back into the lineups in Europe. maybe it'll be half an XG sharper. Yeah. Yeah. So next up is Canada.

They, as we mentioned, they beat Honduras 2-0 in San Pedro. So the scene of their getting absolutely shellacked like a decade ago. So that's a meaningful win for them. The score line does flatter them a bit, I think. It was a pretty even contest.

And Honduras outpossessed Canada by about 60 to 40, which obviously doesn't sometimes. Canada's okay with that. That's not their, it's not their goal to out possess the opponent. And the XG in that game was, depending on which service you're looking at, I think Instat had it at like 1.4 to 0.7 Honduras over Canada.

And Weiss scout had it at like 1.1 to 0.7 or something like that. Now, keep in mind, Canada scored on an own goal in the 10th minute. That's their first goal. which doesn't show up on XG. Right. And also is going to affect game state for how much they're chasing versus how much Honduras are chasing. That's true. That's true.

And also Jonathan David's goal was, which ice the game was a very low XG goal. It was a lovely, lovely goal. A ball over the, a really good ball over the top. He takes it down with his chest and then chips the keeper from 25 yards or something like that. So in any case, Canada is doing what it needs to do and they look good. And I think if we are to get a win on Sunday, it's going to probably take a performance on the level of our play in Cincinnati against Mexico, something like that. It does feel like anything could happen in Hamilton. That's exactly right.

And I'll just throw out that Canada could play anyway. I have no idea how they're going to approach us, whether they'll sit back the way they did in the opener in Nashville. or if they will not the opener but our first game against them in Nashville or if they'll come out and try to like play us and open up and see if they can sort of take the game to us if you want to call it that. I have no idea what to expect. I know Alfonso Davies is out. Who's their center midfielder, Eustacchio who has who was positive with COVID has made it back and was on the bench available for that Honduras game, which was a bit of a surprise. So you got to imagine that he will be able to play. but it's going to be kind of a cool chess match. I feel like that this has been one of the more interesting chess matches in the region is Herdman versus Burrhunter.

Yeah. I mean, he's, Hurdman, Hurdman's got to get all the kudos right now, the top of the table. This has got this MLS heavy roster of his, and they just look really good all the time. And they have a great striker in Jonathan David, just like we do in Jesus. Barrera. Thank you. Thank you. I'm expecting the 11 to be similar to what it was versus El Salvador. I mean, Burrhalter's words were we're going to evaluate everybody physically and, you know, make decisions based on that. So let's, let's hope it's not. We don't see a Sebastian Leggette start. That would be, that would be hard on everybody, I believe. I don't think we said who the subs were So it was at least interesting that Luca de la Torre Was in on the bench available

Legette not in uniform So You know I guess let your Let your imagination run wild there with what that means And we don't have too long To let our imaginations run The game is in

You know many of you won't listen to this till Saturday The game is in a day If you're in that camp And if you're listening to it on Friday evening You know You could do the math. It's not that far away. Sunday at 3 p.m.

The forecast in Hamilton is a high of 24. Now it's a big difference between that and what's going to happen in St. Paul because the high of 24 hits right at 3 o'clock, which is when the game kicks off. So it's going to be the warmest time of the day. Yeah, and that sunshine on the face will be a real welcome element that they're not going to enjoy in St. Paul. Yep.

There will be no sunshine at 6 p.m. 6 p.m. in St. Paul. And right now, did I already say what the forecast is? Say it again. Say it again. I mean, it has declined a lot in the last 48 hours, but the last I saw was a high of 10 degrees, which we're not going to see at 6 o'clock and a low of minus 9. So.

Like, all you can do is laugh about that. That is, that is, again, we're approaching dangerous, like move the game indoors or postpone it. territory, depending on what the windchill kicks in at two, because that's air temperature, right? Yeah. All right. We're not a meteorology podcast, but like we'll dabble a little bit. It's going to be bad. Yeah.

I mean, I hope if they're going to postpone it, that they make that decision pretty soon because a lot of people are like, including me, are flying to St. Paul. Next week. Well, three point Thursday. That's what it was. upcoming six point Sunday. Let's do this. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.